Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Mom's Car

Mom wanted her own car. She had use of Daddy's car
whenever it was available but she decided she wanted her own. The thing
was that she was a homemaker and did not have an outside job. She wanted
it to be all hers as in she made the money and paid for it.

Not
having a job outside the home meant no money. She could not get a job
because she would not have regular availability of the car. What to do?
Daddy told her he would get her a car and she adamantly refused.

My
inventive mother decided to collect refundable bottles and cans to see
if she could raise the money on her own. She collected all the bottles
that her children were too lazy to return to the store. She regularly
visited our houses to pick them up. She also scouted along the streets
of the city and picked up bottles and cans that people had littered the
area with.

She would take them to the grocery store and
cash them in. The money she received was placed in a bank account she
had opened specifically as her auto account. It added up surprisingly
fast. So as she still collected the bottles she began shopping for a
car.

It took a while but she finally found one that fit
her criteria. It was compact but had a roomy trunk. It was a used car
but ran well. That was the only contribution Daddy was allowed to make. He
checked out the car to make sure it was in good condition for her.

It
was not a car I would have chosen. It looked like an old lady's car but
it was what she wanted. The paint was an ugly color. I do not even
remember what it looked like but I do remember it was ugly. But Mom was
happy with it.

She had enough money from her pop bottles to pay cash for the car. She had enough left over for insurance and license plates AND
a full tank of gas. She kept collecting bottles for a long time to pay
for anything she needed for the car and maybe a little extra something
personal for herself.

Mom and I were involved with a
small company in which we taught people to paint on fabrics and metals.
The hope was that the people would enjoy it so much they would purchase
the paint and other supplies from us. We did moderately well.

I
used the money I made to buy things for my family. Mom reinvested in
product. She had paints to be used with brushes, thinner, remover,
brushes, and spray paints. She bought things by the case and got really
good deals.

The company that we were affiliated with went out of business. Oh well. But Mom had all these paints lying around.

As
I said her car was an ugly color. Mom decided that since she had all
this spray paint she would paint her car. She got the necessary items
like masking tape to help cover windows and chrome and got the car ready
to paint. Then she chose her color.

She had several
cases of phosphorescent blue so she chose that. Being the capable and
artistic person she was she did a good job with her painting. The car
looked great.

My parents did not have a garage. No one
in that neighborhood did. They all parked on the street in front of
their houses. My parents' bedroom also happened to be in the front of
the house.

The first night Mom parked her car in front
of the house after her paint job they noticed a strange glow out front
when they went to bed. It was an eerie bluish light. Aliens? UFO? Nope.
Mom's fluorescent blue car. Daddy got a good chuckle out of that.

Being
in the big city has definite drawbacks. One is the amount of crime.
Often the people committing the crimes tried to elude police by hiding
in residential areas where it was easier to conceal themselves from the
authorities. If the crime was serious enough the police would call out
the helicopter to help them search.

The helicopter has a
strong searchlight that they play over the area. Often they can see
things that are not visible from the ground. It also illuminates areas
that the ground police might not be able to see well. It is a good tool
and being in the big city we saw that helicopter quite often.

One
night Mom and Daddy were asleep when the helicopter began to make so
much noise that it woke them up. Daddy got up to see what was going on.
After all you do not want criminals loose in your neighborhood. Almost
immediately he told Mom to get dressed and come out front which she
did.

Outside were several squad cars and the
helicopter hovering very low above the street. They had been chasing
someone when the helicopter spotted this glowing blue object and
reported it. Squad cars were immediately summoned to the area. There sat
Mom's car.

After a discussion about why on earth the
car was glowing in the dark and why on earth anyone would paint it to do
that, everyone had a big laugh. The police and their helicopter went on
their ways. Mom and Daddy went back to bed.

Mom had
that car for several years. Because it was a used car when she got it
problems eventually were troublesome. She kept it in repair as long as
she could but she finally had to let go of it. She had other cars after
that but never any that she loved as much.

Moms sure are something. My mom collected cans for scrap, back in the seventies. She enlisted her grandchildren, and could be seen slowly driving along a berm while grandchildren put cans in the trunk. One day she make my sister drop her at the bottom of a hill, to collect cans. Mom would meet her at the top. Mom never came up. My sister found her in the ditch with a broken ankle, being tended by strangers. My sister was unhappiest at what the strangers implied about making your mother walk up the hill, gathering cans. That was the end of mom's recycle business.

This is one of the best stories about your family, Emma, not that so many others have not been wonderful. It's just that reading about your mother's resourcefulness and the story of the blue paint car really made me in awe of her. I can recall as kids that we would find refundable bottles and use the money for ice pops, but never did we get enough towards a car, insurance or gas. You didn't mention the time period so I was wondering it this was in the 1930s or 40s and also what the deposit amounts might have been.